The six varied women appearing in the recent Neiwai ad “To the True Body,” showcases a diverse range of shapes and sizes that women’s bodies come in. Considering the more typical physical appearances seen in the Chinese ad industry, this film makes a big step towards body positivity.

The brand invited independent photographer Luo Yang to capture the various beauty of six ordinary women and document their stories.

品牌邀请独立摄影师罗洋来记录下六位普通女性的不同身材和她们的故事。

The six women range from a women nicknamed Milk Bottle, who shares that since starting surfing she proudly wears her scars as badges of honor while proudly confessing she doesn’t care about the prevailing opinion that small breasts are not sexy; a shy woman named Julie, who on the other hand, has had to battle the common stereotypes about women with big breasts; Reli 热力, who identifies herself as “plus-size”; an older woman called Miss Ma; a Japanese mom called Nami; and Georgina who has a full-length back scar, all tell their stories of self-acceptance.

The video, helmed by Shanghai-based director 戴维Veda, was released in two versions: a 14 min mini-documentary with the six women each telling her own story and a more playful one minute version with snappy lines that read «I’ve loved this body for 58 years, and still do», «Part-time mom, full-time me», «I don’t call it a belly, I call it extra charm» .

The campaign wants to target different body types that don’t fit into the common standard perception of beauty with the clear message that there is no such thing as a «perfect body». But instead, inciting the message that true beauty is about embracing our scars, wrinkles, curves and other “imperfections.”

Neiwai announced that over the next six months they will be embarking more discussions on body diversity. This includes launching another series of videos called “Body Talk”, which the recently released the first video from the series . Also shot by 戴维Veda, Body Talk features three women taking the stage to de-stigmatize the word “fat.”

“To the True Body” seems a little like Neiwai conservatively testing the waters with different representations of beauty. Even when considering that the body positivity movement hasn’t made it to China in full force yet, you can’t help but notice that without the background stories and snappy copy, the six women featured are not exactly the bold image of diversity.

Neiwai also featured the video and images on their official Taobao, but they didn’t go all the way there either – most of the models donning the product on Neiwai’s page are still slender Westerners with languid looks in their eyes. Maybe, with the “Body Talk” series coming, Neiwai will go a step further and embrace the message of “harmony of diversity” that it’s aiming to send, becoming a true “body positive” Chinese brand.

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